Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The Tupperware Drawer

Life is chaos. The more people you love and the more things you go, the more chaotic it gets. My brain thrives on chaos at the same time it demands order and reason. I need background noise to focus (music, TV, etc), but I have to set the volume at an even number or a number that ends in five. I'm serious.

With each major change in my life (marriage, jobs, kids, hobbies), I'm learned to let go of more of my perfectionist tendencies. I used to iron my sheets. Who has time for that? Right now I'm fairly certain my sheets have had baby spit up, possible worse, on them for the last two night. I'll change them as soon as I have two free hands, no one sleeping on them and room in the washer. So basically never.
But even in the happy chaos of life, I crave method in the madness. You wouldn't know it looking in my closet or under the bathroom sink. But my Tuperware drawer? That is a thing of beauty.

Tupperware - or whatever you call the plastic stuff you store leftover meatloaf and the other half of the can of pineapple in - is inherently messy. Every couple years, someone one develops a new way to keep lids together or stack sizes in a rational fashion, but they're gimmicks and by the time your chicken soup is cool enough to put away, you're tearing apart the whole drawer because you can't find the right lid for the right size and forget it, no one eats the leftovers anyway.

Or at least that's been my experience.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that no matter how disorganized and unpredictable my life is, I can remain calm if I know my Tupperware drawer is in order. I know it's crazy. But the state of that drawer has become a kind of bellwether for my sanity. When lids start to disappear and the kiddie cups spread, my grip on life becomes tenuous.

And I think this is okay. Having one spot, however hidden, I can keep together lets me be flexible with the rest of my life. I think we all need a Tupperware drawer, some small, simple thing that we can look at and say "THIS at least is in order." Because life is chaos and we all crave order.

What about you? Do you have a "Tupperware drawer" in your life? 

No comments:

Post a Comment